News

As MN Community Measurement continues to make progress toward a publicly-reported Total Cost of Care measure, our work was highlighted in the Employee Benefits Planner, a quarterly publication for human resource managers. The article, submitted by MNCM’s Health Economist Gunnar Nelson and Chief Operating Officer Tina Frontera, details the journey to develop a true measure of the cost of health care in Minnesota.

Are you receiving quality care? How would you know? With a grant from RWJF and in collaboration with AF4Q communities, Consumer Reports published information comparing the quality of doctors in three states. Patients generally don’t practice medicine, so it can be hard for them to know just what constitutes high-quality care. In the absence of easy to understand, objective information, health care consumers might never know how well their physicians measure up.

Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) alliances have been leaders in measuring and publicly reporting the performance of physician practices. The challenge has been ensuring that patients have access to and use this data to make better care decisions.

This case study highlights how three AF4Q communities—Greater Boston, Minnesota, and Wisconsin—partnered with Consumers Union to publish special inserts in its magazine, Consumer Reports, to provide consumers with access to performance data for local medical practices.

Almost half of low-income adults in Minnesota weren’t screened for colorectal cancer in 2013, according to the seventh annual Health Care Disparities Report conducted by MN Community Measurement and sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States.

MN HealthScores is brought to you by MN Community Measurement, an independent, non-profit community organization founded in 2004. Our goal is to accelerate the improvement of health by sharing information on health care quality, cost and patient experience with all Minnesotans.